Thanks to encouragement by my wife, I got a lot of writing time this week and finished my draft of Chapter 4. The word count is now 19,234 words.
Now I'm looking into the cavernous maw of Chapter 5 and have realized something important: my outline for Chapter 5 is woefully inadequate. In fact, I need to add so much material, I'm going to split it into two chapters so I can show the reader what's happening rather than tell them what's happening in a huge info dump.
I discovered this issue when I looked over my outline and realized I needed to put together a timeline to keep everything straight. After doing that, I discovered huge gaps in the storyline where I skip of tons of stuff and then summarize it at the end of the chapter. Very crappy storytelling there.
So, timelines! I strongly recommend them for authors writing complicated material.
Right now Chapter 5 (the first half of the original Chapter 5) is titled Mars Attacks! for reasons that are evident in the story. It's a cheesy name that right now is just a place holder until I can work out something better, but it amuses me, which is very important when mid-way through a story.
The Aldelle Group is still playing, averaging one game a week. Due to scheduling issues, the actual day we play is not always consistent, but we are still playing.
Writing time this week may be sparse as I will be attending a funeral, so Chapter 5 may take a bit longer to finish as a result.
Later!
No comments:
Post a Comment